philadelphia, franklin's hometown to talk about jane who once visited peter and didn't love it as much as she loved boston. but also to be here in a public library and celebrate the space and all that it stands for. thank you to the library. [applause] i am hoping that none of you have ever heard of jane franklin because i want to tally the story of her life and we don't have that much time to do it. she led a rich and fascinating life and i'm going to try to give their whirlwind tour of it. we'll be looking at sites and i even have props. says that back and listen to the tale that is unknown to you. in 1771, they sent a pair of spectacles. rather, he centers 13 pairs of spec goes with lenses of every

size from one to 13. conducting the own eye exam. when you're at the optometrist about that horrible thing over your face and they have to say which is better, arb. take out a pair of a time and hold one of the classes first against one night and then against the other looking on some small print. i advise to each of yours because few people size their fellows. i love that. the question that raises for me about benjamin and jane franklin. what does it mean to be one of the pair not be fellows? benjamin franklin was born not here in philadelphia, but involved in my hometown in 1706.

he would have been a red sox fan. his sister jane was born six years later. this is from the franklin family record book chronicling their birth. he was the youngest of 10. she was the youngest of seven daughters. that's 17. benny and jenny jenny there were called in their little. no two people in family were were more alike. jane thought of her brother as their second doll she said. they were after a fashion trends and away, like a pair of eyes. they posed no autobiographical to alumni because their life could hardly have been more different. benjamin franklin ran away from home when he was 17. his sister never last. he taught himself to write with wit and foursome style. she never learned how to spell. the day he turned 21 he wrote her a letter.

she was 14. beginning of course would last until his death 63 years later. he became a printer, a philosopher and state men. she became a wife, a mother and a widow. he signed the declaration of independence, the treaty of paris in the comp petition. she strained to form the letters of her name. he loves no one longer. she looks no one better. benjamin franklin wrote more letters to his sister, jane, then he wrote to anyone else. all her life, she wrote back, letter after letter filled with news and recipes and gossip and when she was truly faxed and only then will their blistering opinions about politics. frankly nasty now come you guys know more about benjamin franklin an idea. you know he wrote the story of his life, the private life of benjamin franklin when it was first published. it will turn tail about a boy

who runs away from a life of poverty and obscurity and leaves all that behind, leaves home behind, sister behind from the ignorance behind, leaves the past behind to become an enlightened education independent man of the world. a man of books, a man of learning, science, and in newspapers, a man of letters, expect to go. 1771, the year benjamin franklin sent to sister eyeglasses to say near the road. it wasn't published until his death in 1990. it is one of the most important autobiographies ever written and help them a word. autobiography wasn't coined until 179770 is later. his is a private life made public. it's also an allegory about america. the story of the man is a story of a nation, self-made, rags to

riches. the story of america a spectacle for all the world to see. and not story, he left his sister out. never once did he so much as mention her. where does that leave her unfortunate for quite one knots the world does not know how the other half lives franklin once wrote. his sister he think is his other half ended his life is an allegory, so is hers. but an allegory for what? her life is not a spectacle. and if you have ever heard her before. it's difficult to even see her life makes he is feared her life so tiny. matched only by her. he and his expect to go, she's the facts. i wondered then, might there be a kind of eyeglasses that could hope to see them both at once? no portrait of jane survived like this iconic portrait of franklin. she can't be seen in that way.

there are of course dozens of portraits of her brother. his popularity and hesitation so many paintings made to my face is now almost as well known as battered moon. she wrote back, and it's just as changeable. [laughter] he liked very much to be portrayed wearing his spectacles. they were a trademark for him. historian catherine found franklin as earnest but: more than a third of those surviving portraits. this is the case when there's almost no other 18th century portraits of anyone wearing eyeglasses. it's a quite unusual thing. franklin liked this portrait the best. i.e. care so much about being seen wearing the spectacles? well, mr. spectacles in early america is a story about reading. the spectacles are an emblem of the life mind. people of his glasses and a magnifier for a long time. but i classes him to pieces of pendant framed to be held before your eyes became, in commodities

not until well into the 17th century when they were used exclusively for reading. if you are literate, you might have eyeglasses. you'd never have eyeglasses if you are not literary. i classes are inspector broke from printing an expansion of literacy. people you spectacles to read printed books. you can see the first popular advertisement from 1644 what i classes like date and how they were described. these are no spectacles or birch spectacles to sit on the bridge of her nose. this is a great portrait from dorchester in 1670 holderman in his hand. they're very tiny. but they're always been this portraits associate with bucks because the whole point is in order to read a book. but the very existence of spectacles, though very funny

people have been an only son for reading in the age isaac newtons optics actually inspired all kinds are thinking about seeing an active site. tanks and ideas about different point of view and distortion. the john donne observed that when the outlook is your spectacles, small things seem great. spectacles made small things bigger. wearing them, thinking about them inspired reflection on the nature and the boundaries of the self and of moral imagination. john locke wrote, i think we may rationally hope to see other men's understanding. but if you could see to another man's eyes of a. richard steele in the aptly named spec tater wrote in 171150 man-size are spectacles to those who attend him to read his heart. you can see through the ice and into the heart. wearing spectacles that was not a small thing for benjamin

franklin at march as a man of it. more plight of our timothy prodigious reader, which he was preaching always said when he was a young child than he had learned to read and that he had studied incessantly in the subject it to reading. their father was a poor candle maker, but he decided to send benny to school because he was so brilliant. he put his other sons to trade to practice them, but decided to give one of his sons to church. that meant training to go to harvard or teaching him great. 1741 jenny was to come he entered school, a grammar school and study latin and greek in order to prepare for the ministry. franklin spent only two years there before his father pulled him out to a cheaper school in order to keep in the home to help make candles. franklin hated it. but not the her to school at all even if they been in line two. no public school in 18th

century boston admitted girls. beginning in 1701, massachusetts required for a messiah to teach boys to read and to write and girls to read. girls were not commonly taught to write in 18th century. they were taught inside to stitch. three in five women could not even find their names. many think about going to sign your name is not indication of literacy. it's a mechanical act. most of those who could sign their names could not actually write. the boston newspaper printed a dialogue between a tradesmen and his wife about the education of their daughter that gives you a glimpse of the 18th century ideas about women. the mother wishes to send her daughter to school. letter first fail to reach out during the bible that she may have mispronounced god people for constantinople. maker expert in radiator. the cosmic keeper and teacher

was useful to boil and mixed the pudding, tonight, spin, so, to earn and to spend. i'll have her bread to book early, cookery. this is jane franklin's education. needle and thread. she cut her way to the candles, the worker brother hated. she boiled so. weinert benjamin franklin wanted me to send her spec will? girls never learn to read or write him a letter read but not too bright. james franklin did learn to read because most girls did. but she was no ordinary reader. she read passionately peer she read avidly. and she learned how to write, which is quite an unusual thing. i think her brother taught her. benjamin franklin from boyhood

five firm learning letter by letter, book by book, kindled by candle. he valued nothing more new love knowing better than his little sister. but it was cruel in its kindness because when he left, the less amended. in 1770, her brother sent a printing shop in boston. it was a godsend because here at last was a trade for a bookish boy whose family were too poor to send them to hire her. he became his brother's apprentice and moved out of the house into a room of brothers about his brother shot. he was 12, january 6. it gave franklin all kinds of opportunity and was the best part of the apprenticeship. he read every book that passed through the shop. he also read books he brought from a friend of his named john collins. he sat up reading all night long. he and his friend john like to

trade books end-stage debates as if they were university men that would pretend they were her of his students. the only debate he remembered well enough to write about in his autobiography was with his friend john collins over educating the female sex and learning them about their abilities. the girls are unequal to it. franklin disagree. he took a contrary side. maybe you're thinking of jane. craftiness argument, frank coming dynabook invite the so-called essays on project. the establishment of an academy for an inviting i've often thought of it as one of the customs of the wrote considering the civilized and christian country that we deny the advantages of learning women. regretting the frivolousness of education. they stitch and sewer make bottles and are taught to read and write their names and that is the height of a woman's education. if though proposed an academy for women that would hold back

no sort of learning to such genius of the event to it. this is the argument benjamin franklin as a young boy made up his best friend, following the arguments about the need for women's education. franklin lost the argument. he carried on a lot of the arguments by writing. he and his friend would rebut each other and exchange these letters and came across the papers and read the arguments and then he critiqued and told franklin he was not anywhere near as strong as a writer is his friend john collins. franklin learned a great lesson about how to write and argue in the course of that debate. benjamin franklin was improving his prose by arguing about the education of girls. jane was at home tipping candles. quietly with what time she could spare, she seems to have been doing more. she once wrote to her brother, i read as much as they gear.

in 1721, james brought his first pair spectacles to shop in boston. he was 24. he also started printing a newspaper, the new england current. but he really wanted to do is wait for this newspaper. his mother would never let them, so he disguised his handwriting and such the contribution under the newspapers store. the printing shop door. he gave himself silent do good. she introduced herself by way of remarks about the art of biography. i saw seldom entertained unless they contain something admiral were exemplary in since there's little or nothing in my adventures, i will not tire readers of tedious particulars, but will briefly and with few words as possible really to most material occurrences her life and according to my letter. does this make you want to read eat 18th century stuff? [laughter] is so awesome. is it not on some?

franklin wrote in the voice of mrs. silent do good, a widow, a woman. she had to explain because she knew how to write how she came at her education. the first thing she says is let me explain to you nowadays i can be a woman writer because it seems an impossibility. her story was her father and mother had died and she had been given as a charge to administer a very liberal views about education. he endeavored i might be instructed, which is necessary and accomplishments be obtained such as ulcers of needlework, writing and arithmetic in deep freeze of the library. it was well chosen from the understanding of the great and noble idea. explain the story of her life as she spent her childhood with the best of companies. think about this moment now.

jenny is time, benny 16. this is something franklin is most famous for writing. disguised as a woman whose carotid was spent reading books. silence do good. benjamin franklin when away from home and 1723 and came here of course. he was 17. jane was 11. she was a reader. she somehow inspired to do good. was she a writer? they want fast, what would've happened if they had a wonderfully gifted sister? they give permission to invent to shakespeare. but imagine if facts are hard to come by and conjured a girl is going to daring. she was adventurous and imaginative to see the world. imagine virginia wilson.

she was not sent to school. she had no chance of turning trauma and logic. she picked up a book now and then. and read a few pages. but then her parents came and told her to amend the stockings had not been about with books and papers. this is a thought experiment. what would've happened to shakespeare? before she was out of her teens, she was to be patrolled to enabling both. she cried -- but that's the worst possible stay. she cried out that marriage was hateful and for that she was severely beaten by her father. they care not to hurt them, shaman and gave her beads and there were tears in her eyes. how could she disobey them?

in this fiction, shakespeare runs away and becomes a not yours. then she seduced by a theater company manager. and then wolfe writes, who shall measure the heat and violence caught entangled in a woman's body. she killed herself one winter's night. that's what happens to shakespeare. last back a question i ask him as this it's going to happen to jane franklin? shakespeare is of course a figment of imagination. she's actually a rather modern and manly idea itself, the author himself, solitary and unencumbered, a free man. judith shakespeare killed herself because she was pregnant, because she could not reconcile a life of the mind or of the artist with the life of the mother.

neither could virginia woolf. the facts of jane franklin play for a very hard to come by. most of what she wrote is lost and let's can't record of her life is only because she was benjamin franklin sister. james franklin is not a figment of my imagination. she was flesh and blood and milk in tears. her brother ran away and broke their fathers her. she would not, she could not. she never gave her self-image room. she didn't kill himself one winter's night. she never gave us hope that rove be there. she too many people to look after. she never left anyone behind. her whole life she heard the other left the house. she didn't have a room of her own until she was 69 years old. i write now in my own chamber and no one in the house to disturb me she wrote delighted. she was very happy to have that room. but not having a sinner is why she didn't write more or better.

in 1723 after benjamin franklin ran away and settled here in philadelphia opened to a printing shop like his brother, revolution eyewear began when this kind of high class call the temple spectacle was invented. it had arms. franklin started selling the spectacles at a shop in philadelphia in 1730 when he was 24, which is also when he began wearing it. same inch brother james started wearing spectacles and glasses. the first dealing with them for reading like most other people did. but he would walk up and down market street wearing his eyeglasses and people would laugh at what are you doing? there only for reading. he would use a different pair when he was outside because he realized he had to cut the problems with this bike. not long after he began when spectacles, benjamin franklin of course invented bifocals. he later explained, i had two

pairs of spectacles, which are shifted occasionally. i sometimes read and often want to regret the prospects, find the change troublesome palestine to take off one pair of glasses. i have in my other pair ready, instead associate the same circle. as they were my spectacles constantly if only to glance up or down as they want to see distinctly fired near the proper glasses being ready. is this all cannot and a flat for me? the code explaining how to write a biography of two people who are very different, like a vernacular biography. there's a lesson here the writing of history. few people sizer fella. franklin went to his sister that day. rs look-alike, but they see differently he told her. almost everybody in reading uses one i principally come to the other dimmer for does not check. one nearsighted, the other fire.

she needed two different lenses because she had two different arms. this story needs to different lenses, too. one up close and one far away. want to write the life of a great man, benjamin franklin and can want to write the life of a small one. i got completely obsessed with this idea for vernacular biography when i strain to write a life of james franklin. it seemed to me so many different problems that once. if only i had a pair of these classes. i got to wondering what they look like. there's actually no 18th century portrait of a woman actually wearing spectacles. there are however a few women holding them. there's one woman who you could see her classes. it's always the classes in the book. i'm alerted women. i know how to read is what this says. i'm alerted women, i know how to

read. this woman is very hillary clinton. doesn't she look like hillary clinton? [laughter] this is the closest i found of a woman wearing glasses. she's like i am brainy. every them a portrait of a woman wearing spectacles are working spectacles that got a book with them and they're really quite similar. anyways, i decided i need a pair of these classes. that would be helpful, right clicks so i brought these in an online shop. i have been here. you'll notice the motto of the shop is pretty interesting. so these are the classes. i was going to get my prescription put in them, but it was too expensive. i can't see a thing. i put them on and i would pass

them around, but it's a big crowd -- use your imagination. but if you have glasses, take your glasses off for a minute. second turkish crowd. everybody has glasses. think about the way that wearing spectacles changes your sense of yourself. the comeback on. i can't read mena. when you have your glasses on, very few people have glasses. it's a weird thing to put them on. it would be like wearing something that's really uncommon. when you put your glasses on, you suddenly get an inside and outside to your head. there's a window on your soul. people really felt that way, do you could see into someone through their classes. even if i were to put these classes on, i could. to james franklin tire.

so putting on my inner james franklin bifocals come i thought about virginia woolf. and then i looked at them side by side. that is pretty interesting right there. his name? they see a posture, a post on a worldview notion of selfhood, a notion of a writer's life. this is a vision of how an author works. this is a vision of the author as voluntary and alone and isolated in a room of her of her papers papers and heard that. the author unencumbered by anyone else's needs. that is the story told in those of these portraits. it's also the story that franklin tells in his autobiography and why he has to leave his sister out of it. james franklin was not

unencumbered. if there porcher, i would not look like this. she was hardly ever oman. she also never read the story of her life. it would never occur to her to do that. she did one stitch between two covers to make a little book of 16 pages. this is a cover of it. a native facsimile. i told you i problems. i'm also not going to pass around because his precious to me. this is the actual side of the autobiography. it's four pages ripped out and stitch with this coarse thread. i put on my hippie classes. i was trying really hard to transport. but when i went to see this little book that jane made, it exists in an archive in boston. it is very small. it's humble, it's quite plain as you can see.

i'm the first page, she wrote three words, "book of ages." what does that mean? i just didn't know, what does that mean? it is not an autobiography. it is a book of ages. it is a list of the birth and death of her 12 children. it is a litany of grief. it is her midlife with not rags to riches, but rags to rags. the hardest thing about reading james franklin book of ages is that it is 16 pages. i discovered she had left most of the pages blank. how should nothing more to say? is filled with despair. what was i thinking that i could actually know this one and then write about her?

but i put my glasses on and i thought about bifocals. and i looked at the speech is one more time. sitting in that archive, we'll been the stitch together with these coarse thread, looking at the blank page or james franklin spectacles come i began to think that james franklin had something to say after all. it's a very delicately and once more turned the pages of "book of ages." i felt anon written story, history books and papers, reading and writing. a book of ages about ages of books. i just want to tell you a little bit about how that story works. i thought first about the book itself. her paper was made from rocks, drained and dried. her thread was made from flax, combed and spun and and died.

on the table as she lay a sheet and smith do with the palms of her hands. she creased it unfolded it and again she pressed her doping. needless to choose the theme. it is no thicker than a patch of burlap. but then she'd get enough of a pattern from the center of the bird to oil mixed with the embryo, "book of ages" in the flourishing hand that she would've learned out of a book her brother planted in philadelphia called the american instructor or young man best companion. they learned how to write through books that benjamin franklin printed. she turns the page and wrote james franklin, born march 27, 1712. i am going to do the transcription here. the 27th of july, 1727. the first stage we learn, born

march 27, 1712, 15 years, four months. she was a child when she married. the legal age for marriage in massachusetts was 16. the average age was 24, which except for james is the average age of which her sisters were married and also the age at which benjamin franklin was married. it is extremely unusual to marry at the age of 15. it was also illegal. the man she married was poor. he was a sadler. she never once heard anything but the least affection. she heard about anything at all. she wrote the firstborn 1729 and then added 19, died may 18, 1730. the child of her childhood died three weeks shy of her first

birthday. a dead child despite no more surprising than me pretty sure in a sermon called for dots inside the hours. one in four children died before the age of 10. they were wrapped in linen, dipped in melted? her box was a time is built and painted black. at the gravesite. the more earnest, norm ministers wanted there to be any tears. a token from warner said the price of price we distressed mother of her dear only son printed in boston the way james first child died. luke chapter 17 verse 13, we cannot. but remains of a lifelike this? remains is what remains also unpublished papers and our descendents, our children are our remains. the boston poet wrote about her

children is my little babes, make your remains. perhaps these poems were her children, too. she called them dowdell formed offspring of my feeble brain. her words that all her children when they have left of her. she wrote, a chance to thine eye shall bring this verse, kiss the speed her. jane did not know how to write a poem. she couldn't have afforded a gravestone for this child. instead, she went home and wrote a book of remembrance. kiss this paper. in 1733, jane franklin make them turn 21. she came of age. from philadelphia her brother center the gift of the book,, a copy of the three volumes. jane wrote with great pride, her but given to her by her brother, benjamin franklin, 1733. franklin of course has all of you know do a great deal about libraries. in 1731 founded the first

lending library in america. he printed up charge for borrowers. jane had her own ideas about libraries. she described her name -- she described her name inside, jane become. she won the second line to franklin's wife writing so she would be sure she would get it back. benjamin franklin explained the library company of philadelphia had meant to him. this library afforded me the means of improvement baycol society for which i set apart an hour to each day in this prepared in some degree the learned education my father had once intended for me. i think he meant the ladies library would do the same for his sister. but it only went so far. franklin had founded in philadelphia gentleman's library to his sister gave the ladies library, the book is radical premise was stated on the first

page of the first volume which read, it is a great injustice to shut books of knowledge from the eyes of women. prepare the loss, open the book. jane franklin gave birth to 12 children in 24 years. her belly swelled nmt canceled again. her filled and emptied and filled again. her days were days of flash. bottlenecked some alarms, little hands clutched around our neck of the baby in her arms or anticapitalism tugs, spain. the days passed amounts, months two years in the book of ages pressed her children to new pages. her husband fell into debt. he may have gone mad or two of her sons became violently and being. it have to be locked out. jane and her children live with their parents whom she nursed in their old age. she gave birth to 12 children 24 years and bury 10 of them.

she wrote to her brother, sorrows roll upon me like the waves upon the sea. i'm hardly allowed for a time to search my breath. i am broken with breach upon breach and she begged god, citing job, what have i more? she found comfort in her book of ages in the book she read the books her brother sent her. she read and she read, spent years trying to reconstruct her library. usually about her name in the book she young tears like experiments on electricity. she once wrote and asked him to send or other pamphlets and papers printed of your writing. she went through the political pieces he never written. he wrote back, i could easily like a collection of the past pairings of my mail. but he sent would be good. it was politic she loved best. but books of philosophy that i

read through them several times. when until i take not been read and it seems as though i were conversing with you are hearing you. she once wrote. i find pleasure in that. she has her books are by other authors, book she heard about. she read newspapers and magazines, novels and histories. she read sermons and speeches. she read whatever she could get her hands on. she read until her eyes restrained. jane's eyes were like her two brothers. she would've needed reading glasses by the age of 24. women of course do not commonly wear spectacles. it's not even see them in portraits in the inventories of people belonging. a woman in the house does not have spectacles. in 1771, jane went to benjamin franklin center in those 13 pairs. the senior massachusetts for the first time required girls be taught to write. ideas about the education are

finally changing. what verizon women's and education without glasses. the portraits i've shown you of women holding classes. these portraits are from the 1780s and 1790s. before this coming never see women holding classes because women were not thought to be learning anyway. these are from 1787. in the company of buxton online, jane franklin came a radical. a reader who likes politics and philosophy best, she observed the most radical ideas of the 18th century. i want to tell you what my story about a book she read in 1786 when she was 74 or so she raised her children grandchildren and great-grandchildren. also then. she put on her step to kos and read a book called for dissertations by richard price and political radical. one objection to the idea

everything in life is fêted by providence price road is the failure to thrive. many parish in the room and many more are nipped in the world. very few of these. a spider the 600 eggs and very few grow into spiders. so too for humans. thousands of oils, geniuses have been lost to the world and lived and died in ignorance and meanest merely for want to be placed in favorable situations and enjoying proper advantages. no one dies for not. but that doesn't mean suffering can be protested. with price for dissertation open and was spectacles arness, jane wrote a letter to her brother. dr. price thinks thousands of boils of clerks and you have probably been lost to the world she wrote. today she added an opinion of her own. very few resellers able to all

impediments and arrive to a great degree of superiority and understanding. benjamin franklin known in his sister knew even better that very few through 300,000 seats to make 600 eggs, of the 17 children of josiah franklin, how many review, nearly none were possibly two. jane franklin died in 1794. a book of ages is stored in an archive embossed in. articles do not survive to the hundreds of letters she wrote, more than half of them lost. the rest are here in philadelphia. the bulk of the correspondent though only serve list in the year 192-8159 letters were

auctioned. in 1928, virginia turned her attention to women's rights. she just finished writing orlando come a parity biography of things she thought was good, a meditation out of the obsolete libraries. biographies of nobody payable for a comedy of stir sleep the walls, slouching against each other as if they were too drowsy to stand upright. he was in october 1928 at cambridge university soon after published as a room of one's own. what she wanted to know what has happened had shakespeare had a wonderfully gifted sister called i've always wondered where she got that idea. i think maybe that's all virginia woolf casting for a lecture series came across a catalog, slumbering upon us who

read the most remarkable and extensive series of letters by benjamin franklin to his sister, jane. in order to read those words, in order to imagine judith and william shakespeare to think about janet benjamin franklin, virginia woolf had first put on her spectacles. thank you. [applause] i would be delighted to take questions if you could wait for a microphone to arrive to you, that would be terrific. just raise your hand. yes, in the green. >> it's great that you did this.

i'm wondering if ben franklin never returned home to see her. and also, you ought it not fuse who demand printing shops all over the county. for any of them her children? >> what a terrific question. this is why you come to talk about the franklins. yes, he joked that he visited boston every year, which he did. i think that was it. he ran in 23 to show off that he had become a printer. he brought her the ladies library that year. he was postmaster general or deputy postmaster general. every time he stayed with jane. he went up 53 to get an honorary degree from harvard, which must have felt good.

so he saw her every 10 years. they actually spent time together because of the revolution began in is occupied by the british, she packed over belonging and fled the city, saving all the letters franklin had sent to her as she cupped in his track miraculously appear schieffer to rhode island and then chaumont and scott were to benjamin franklin jane had survived the attack and frankly most of the continental congress and kind of made it necessary that somehow he had to make george washington in cambridge. he went up to get jane. he brought her back to philadelphia. she spent the beginning of the revolutionary war in philadelphia. the continental congress is meeting in tom paine is over having dinner. the sad thing when people in the same house worse because they don't write letters. as an historian you hate it when people see one another.

[laughter] the nephews producer. so james berzon, she named the next factor has entered after her brother. this is what you commonly do. hurt her son, benjamin mico became a printer. first of a former apprentice in new york and they set him up at the print shop and is a very convoluted tale. goes in violently and pain. franklin writes the ways to love . proverbs of how things she gets purchased because of the failing and franklin really want him to succeed so you can take care of his mother. there's a gentleman way back here. can you just wait for the microphone?

>> tanks. just a question. do you have any knowledge as to whether or not jane and abigail adams had any relationship? obviously they know of each other and what is them. >> yap, yap. well, frankly new items and john adams of course hated franklin. this is not meant to make fun of your question, but it's sort of like it may mother no hillary clinton? is a completely different social and economic circle. a very poor woman struggling as a widow and a seaport of boston. abigail adams was quite a learned and sophisticated woman of her day, who traveled to london and paris, so i have no reason to believe he would ever have known one another. people that jane likes. i have a chapter in the book

about a fascinating brights who jane adores because she makes beeswax peep hole, which jane makes so then waxworks people like that. she heats up the? or putting it between her thighs. and that she works it under her skirt and kids like heads. so james thinks this is all some. she just thinks that the most beautiful thing i've ever seen. she writes franklin a letter because she's got to go to london and become an artist to the court. she comes to boston chicken writes a letter of recommendation for her. your brother come you the best patient. she's wonderful. abigail adams calls the queen of . i'm just saying, this is a different class of one man. she did not think that was cool.

[laughter] yes here with the scarf. >> were books of ages, not that time because i saw on that page her death was also written. >> yeah, her death is written because her grandson inherits the book of ages and the sound just then. so yes, there were no birth certificate and a vital statistics. if you wanted to know when anyone was born come you had to write it down. most people didn't know how old they were. very few people in his actual birthday. if you had a family like a mother or father come you might take a scrap of paper and write these things down. most people have a bible or an almanac where you stick the blank pages in an almanac. people get these records all the time. they want to know how old

everybody was or what yours people die. you often do in your bible. but the 19th century, like in my family bible we have a page that is reprinted to use that you're supposed to write in the rings. bibles and become printing. they begin printing pages of the form they fill up because people use the blank pages. there's really not something people had available. jean kind of get around little book out of it. other people do that, too. i've never seen anybody call it a book of ages. the phrase seems to be really her own. it is used liturgically to mean book of the dead. so it's a devotional form rather than a pure chronicle. but yes, people would very often do that. she suffers rare. it's not just a list. that's another purpose, which is

very interesting. she stops using it in 1767 long before she died because she can't stand it anymore. that's a pages are blank. her favorite daughter dies at that point she closes the book of knots. as a woman way, way in the back there. you, yes, you. [inaudible] >> either very quick question. could you tell me what the letters are? >> the letters are largely here it the american full text all society. >> i come i realize this is asking for speculation, but it's jane franklin had been male, do you think should have had similar success to her brother or do you think she would've flipped her life but benjamin franklin other brothers who

didn't have the same opportunity? >> you know, i don't think we can know. we can't know. the other way to pose the same question be why she an undiscovered genius? that the kind of starving of one's intellect being deprived of any kind of an education for years and years and years and outweigh. you know, when franklin says i opened up the company of philadelphia devoted an hour each evening. she's got 12 kids. i'm sorry. i can't devote an hour each evening. in other words, i find that a more interesting question. but what are the limits and the life she did leave, not would've been possible if she had a completely other life. partly because i'm an empirical person. i can't know that, so i don't want to ask it because it makes me sad that i can't know. i like questions i can get an answer to.

if i can understand -- he can't possibly you a letter because i'm a bit busy. i'm in the continental congress, so i'm busy, too. [laughter] with a t-shirt here in the center. >> what sparked your interest in jane franklin quiet >> that's a great question. i grew up on franklin street. you grow up and franklin town, so i don't know why all of your interest in jane franklin. the street i grew up in a town of massachusetts was laid out on the 200th anniversary of his birth in 19 as six. franklin has come a franklin now it gets tiresome. so i was the kind of little kid who when you read a book that you like and thank god because this person has 40 other books on fat. you're going to read every book or whatever. so i still have that.

it's a very childish thing. as an adult when i read somebody whose work i like, it's like staying too long to dinner with somebody or enjoying dinner with. so when i discovered benjamin franklin as a writer, i thought i could spend some time with this guy. the benjamin franklin papers have been published volume by volume since the 1950s. i went to the library one day and pulled one volume down after another. she's delightful, charming, generous, fortunate, brilliant, sly, sneaky. you know the man. okay, today was fun, and every other letter was to this woman named jane whom i'd never heard of. did i miss something? there were almost no letters

back from her because they don't print those. they're franklin papers, not jean. i became fascinated and found this book by provender on who won the pulitzer prize for the 1930s beautiful biography of franklin who spent the rest of the life the same way i felt that day. so he was appointed to the library committee and the philosophical society donating his time trying to find this in 1928 in london from a guy who bought them and brought them to philadelphia. otherwise they'd still be in private hands. so i was kind of relieved to know i wasn't the only person in the entire history of the universe. but i was only the second. i did work on the project for a long, long time. throughout this long essay in "the new yorker" this past summer about how my mother kept saying when you're going to write a book about jane franklin

quite i kept saying that look is impossible. listen to what no one could write that book. she belike so what, right the book. but get this done. side made progress on it over the years. i had abandoned it like 10 times. i'm not really a fat person in embracing my own children to give out all this death, it scared me. i met my father died and my mother was ill and i thought, this i must do. ..